Idiots in Space

16

Everyone is awake now, but I've got almost no sleep. We both stay quiet about last night's events.

"Okay. So I'm detecting a ship and a planet ahead. Which one we wanna go to." Silver gave this morning's announcement. Either way we're screwed, if we go to the ship Taras dies, but if we go to the planet we all die. Taras and Luka are anxious to go to this ship and I just don't have an opinion on this situation. I'm mentally preparing myself for the death of Taras but also trying to think of a way I can prevent it.

"It looks intact from what I can tell." Silver inspects this here ship. It has a sleek design kind of like a fighter jet on earth. It could totally fuck you up. "Who wants it?" She asks.

"I'll take it." I volunteer.

"I'll take it." Taras voices. "You're the pilot of this ship. You need to stay."

"You're my second. So you need to stay."

"Luka can replace me." He points to a dazed Luka who is hanging upside down off of my bed eating blueberries.

"I'm good." He drops a blueberry on the floor but still tries to eat it.

"Sure..." I think Luka is just constantly stoned on a mystery drug.

"It's settled then. Taras get out there." Silver confirms the transaction. Taras suits up and I watch him blankly. Is this how it's gonna go? I could stop him but I'm just kinda frozen. I watch him float the the ship and enter. It turns on with lights illuminating not only the inside, but the outside of the ship. Very flashy.

"Take it for a test drive!" Silver cheers, happy that this thing actually starts up. Me on the other hand, I'm just devastated. We watch him zoom around for a few minutes. Luka took note of my strange behavior this morning.

"You okay?" He asks going to take Taras's place in his chair. "You're kinda..how would I put it? Dead?"

"I'm fine. Just didn't get much sleep." That's true but not. Taras manages to hook up the communication systems and we're all set.

"Shall we carry on to the planet? I've been to it once but it has the best food." Silver says. We agree. Well, they agree. I go to get my headset before we reach this planet.

So there it is. This planet-but it's still intact. Just wait for it. I sit there, nervous as all hell as we approach it. It's quite small. About the size of Ireland for god sake. And then I see it-the ship.

"Hold on." I say, hoping I would halt everyone's movements as I pull back. It worked, everyone slowed down. "Something's not right about that ship." I point to the ship which is about the size of our three combined. It's weapons look like lasers from what I can see, and they happen to be deployed. A energy ball seems to build up, these lasers must be activating. "They're gonna fuckin blow up that planet!" I yell. I startle everyone. We all back away faster, then I hear it-it sounds like seventeen earthquakes happening at the same time. Debris is flying past us but we go far enough that there's no more visible hazards. And Taras is still here with us!

Never mind. He's headed back!

"Silver stay here." I command and go as fast as this ship will allow me, following Taras. He's much faster than I am but I'm not gonna let him fuckin' die.

"What the fuck are you don' man?" Luka is tossed around as a recklessly fly round debris and other bits and pieces of the planet. I speak into my headset.

"Taras stop!" I yell.

"I'm going to finish them off." He lied.

"I know what you're doing Taras!"

"No you don't!" He yells back. "I'm not-" His voice gets noticeably shaky, and so does mine as I'm just casually on the verge of tears. It doesn't help that I literally didn't sleep. "Stop following me!" He flies even more recklessly trying to throw me off course.

"I'm not gonna let you do this Taras!" No matter what the dream predicted, I'm gonna beat the system and prevent this even if I end up dead. We're slowly getting closer the the planet's core. At the speed we're going we would reach it in about two minutes. "Do you really think I wouldn't stop you!"

"Yes! Yes I did actually!"

"Are you serious? Taras I gonna stop you because-" I choke up on my words.

"What?! What's your lifesaving reason to stop me!?"

"Because-" I choke up again. Make something else up. "Either we both live or die trying! There's no inbetween. We're a team!" Good job Alex. Taras says something in Russian and I no longer hear from him until we get so fucking close. "Taras I don't want you to do this!" Great, I'm crying.

"Gimme a reason then!" These might be his last words.

"Because-because." I stopped screaming at him because I'll just lose my voice. I try to say what I need to but I keep tripping on my words. "I-"

Fuck.

I think he hit it.

No.

There's no way.

I can't.

I didn't prevent it.

I couldn't tell him...

This is all my fault...

This is all my fault!

God fucking dammit!